While I’ve been waiting for parts to arrive for Elapse, I’ve decided to build a companion rig that can smoothly pan a camera over the course of hours (or days or weeks or whatever). I’ve nicknamed it Relapse because it’s a repeatable camera gimbal, building on the idea of Elapse.
Here’s a quick idea I banged out for Relapse over the course of an evening. This shows the gist of what I’m trying to do, just without any of the structural elements (or gravity).
Those cylinders are stand-ins for some geared motors that I have literally bags full of. That cube in the centre has the same dimensions as my small SLR camera.
After looking around unsuccessfully for cheap gearing that I can source locally, I decided to abandon that and go full-on laser cutter.
To do that, I had to have pretty exact idea of the dimensions of every piece I’ll need, and how it fits together. That’s a good opportunity to dive deep into Solidworks and make an accurate model of how this thing will end up instead of just a rough mock-up.
After a couple nights’ more of work and a trusty pair of digital calipers, I came up with this:
Click to make all your wildest dreams come true
Many of the pieces from this (the rails on the sides of the top gear and the bearings attached to them) are measured based off parts that I already have laying around. Using up excess materials is awesome, so that’s always a bonus.
Now I’ve got to pull it apart and lay all the pieces out for a laser cutting template.